


Familiar

by onthighsbelongtotaemin



Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 13:26:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13412202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onthighsbelongtotaemin/pseuds/onthighsbelongtotaemin
Summary: Taemin comforted Kibum the first time they won.Now Taemin comforts Kibum the first time they ever truly lost.





	Familiar

**Author's Note:**

> I received a request on tumblr for some TaeKey comfort & it made me think of Taemin comforting Kibum after their first ever win.

“Well this is familiar,” Kibum murmurs ruefully. Taemin’s fingers are still warm at his temples and his lips have only just left his forehead. Another tear falls leaving the sweetness of salt on his tongue as it joins so many others.

“If only we were backstage again,” Taemin murmurs. This time is striking in the one measure of its difference: Taemin is not laughing. Not that he laughed the first time, not really, not the time they’re remembering now, a time when everything was fresh and new and full of hope. A distant past because the present is too sharp and scalding to face with open eyes.

Taemin didn’t laugh, but he did smile. Maybe a little chuckle because people crying when they’re happy doesn’t always make sense. It would a few years later when an award they worked five years to earn was handed to them and they stood on a stage and all of them cried. But that would be then and in the memory he was only fifteen and still didn’t understand. So he only smiled.

He doesn’t smile now. He doesn’t cry either. He holds Kibum’s face in his hands and he kisses his forehead, the same motions as when they were young and they won for the first time. And now they’ve lost for the first time and he does it again before he opens his arms fully and wraps them tightly around his friend.

Kibum breaks then.

There weren’t enough pieces still holding together for him to last much longer to begin with. The warmth of Taemin’s embrace melts what’s left and he cries tears that burn his eyes. Soft kisses are pressed to his cheeks and forehead and a hand rubs soft circles at his back.

Gentle consolations weave through the air and soften the ache in his chest: Taemin knows, Taemin has always known.

Kibum’s eyes stay closed and he turns his head on Taemin’s shoulder. He sighs and begins to breathe freely for the first time in days.


End file.
